1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to image editing devices, and more particularly, to an image editing device capable of displaying a read document for a user to edit the displayed content.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is known a copying machine which reads a document image by an image reader, patterns the background of the read image, and then outputs a copy thereof.
Furthermore, a technique of permitting patterns for patterning to be registered to the device by the operation of the user, according to which the user designates a portion with a pattern to be registered in a document to read, using a separately provided tablet. The document is read by the image reader. Thus, the pattern in the designated portion is registered into the device.
Such a conventional technique however suffers the following first and second problems.
According to such a conventional technique, a pattern a user desires to register and a pattern actually registered are sometimes different. This is caused because a range designated by the tablet is different from an actual range in the document. In this case, the user cannot know a registration error until an erroneously registered pattern is output.
Referring to FIG. 55, the user designates the region xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d using the tablet in order to register the pattern formed of oblique lines. The region is registered in the device as a single unit constituting the pattern.
When the registered pattern is actually used for a background, the registered pattern is repeated arranged in both vertical and horizontal directions to form a repeated pattern.
If range xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d in FIG. 55 is used for the repeated pattern, however, the oblique lines of the pattern are disconnected between units, and a pattern looking totally different from the original image of the pattern is output.
The present invention is directed to solutions to the above described problems, and it is a first object of the invention to provide an image editing device permitting a user to accurately designate a pattern to be registered.
A second object of the invention is to provide an image editing device capable of reproducing a registered pattern faithful to the image of the original.
In order to achieve the above-described objects, an image editing device according to one aspect of the invention includes a circuit for reading a document and obtaining image data, a display circuit for displaying the obtained image data, a designating circuit for designating a part of the displayed image data, and a circuit for registering the designated part of the image data as pattern data for use in editing images.
Preferably, the designating circuit includes a setting circuit capable of arbitrarily setting the size of the part of image data.
More preferably, the image editing device further includes a first display circuit arranging at least two of the same designated parts of image data for display.
Further preferably, the image editing device further includes a second display circuit for expanding the designated part of image data for display.
According to the invention, obtained image data is displayed, and part of the displayed image data can be designated in response to a user input. The designated part of image data is registered as pattern data for use in editing images. Therefore, the user can accurately designate pattern data he/she wishes to register.
In addition, the user can set the size of a part of image data to be designated, and therefore an image editing device capable of reproducing a registered pattern faithfully to the image of the original.
According to another aspect of the invention, the image editing device includes a circuit for obtaining image data, a circuit for displaying the obtained image data, a circuit for designated one point in the displayed image data, and a circuit for registering the image data including the designating point as pattern data for use in editing images.